Editor’s Note for Issue 2
After distributing a final PDF proof of Issue 1 to contributors, we received this lovely note from one of them: “Congratulations it’s an amazing magazine. And I never…
CANICULA DI X
For the main event, she throws her neck over the chair-backand I go through the motions already made in a life wherewe still kiss with our mouths open…
Mama
Si mama, madaling-arawGone and away,Nagluluto, naglilinis–With ink hair leavingNangangaligkig ang mgaMarks on the bed, andKamay, buto, karne;Clogging the drain.Baboy daw ang ulam!She drips her wholeDugo, atay, puso;Body, mind,…
Essay on Coming Back Home
I once pressed a sharpie into my palm with such forceit took three days to wash out. I left everything behind,and went east along an unpaved roadwith no…
The First Time
When my friend Linda and I planned a trip to Berlin, Vienna and Prague we had decided, on a whim, to end it in Slovenia. We wanted to…
The Merits of Taking an Argument to the Extreme
I indulge in our overweight toddlerevery time he runs all overmeasI lieprone in bed as breakfast gets coldbecause I can afford to get up latebecause I’m unemployed and…
Perspective
Back in school I learnedPerspective was something for art classStraight edges and connecting linesTo find a vanishing pointNow I am old enough to know betterI don’t know where…
State of the Union
The President is unethical,The congress is thin on backboneBereft of complex thought.Ignorant, demented white menArmed weekend patriots.Armed black menDead first strapped later.I went online seeking factsThat matched my…
Double Madness
Anger lives in my right eyeAnger carries a straight razorAnd ‘trains Pitt BullsThe left eye weeps on FridaysIs vegan and recycles shitI sense the glint of crossed bladesListen…
Inexplixit (knot)
Their breath, goes somewhere yours cannotTheir eyes, closed to us but always wide open Their dreams, becoming a deep foggy voideverything is known, yet unacceptable Their emotion, dragging…
“How’s Pandemic Post-Election Life?”
question asked by Savannah Dudley Uproarious joy drapes loosely over conflict,internal dialogue between self & self-with-panic. Beginnings of celebrations: Natasha Chen,a CNN reporter, says, This is a party—we…
Interlude: Surviving Purity Culture and Sexual Assault
On April 12, 2005, a classmate repeatedly fondled my breasts after I asked him to stop. My friend’s mother was only a few feet away from us the…
UNSCATHED
Wolf (or is it a crocodile) crossing the bottom endof the page, moving from left to right.It has freshly stepped in, hesitant, one could sayas if lingering still…
No, I do not think I am Human
My shell has rotted beyond recognition, the prism of humanity fractured into compost. I have felt the humanness decay off my flesh. I feel incomprehension at the kaleidoscopic…
Reluctancy of Devotion
Up to your neckin beingco-optedadaptedinspecteddisinfectedsuspectedejectedwritten offinto the void.There is reluctancyof devotion,never the right partto begin with.Best years of your lifespent trying to beencompassedinto the works,proving yourself worthyto be…
Plastic Bats
=====so as not to miss the BIG SHOW eagerly we streamed into the Ministry of SpaceGuildsto sign our futures on line segments of unequal length where concepts of…
Ceremony
We count headstones like this:Hankey, Hankey, Brown.Children chant games and tear through the woodsat dusk, circling up, taking turns poking a dead birdwith a stick, weightless ceremony, and…
The Bad Feminist
The bad feminist’s friend says she’s a bad feminist. The bad feminist thinks she might be a bad feminist. The bad feminist likes Game of Thrones. American Psycho…
Home
A hospital nurse died alone in this housea century ago.She smoked cigarettes on the staircase,stained carpet with ash. I assume she misses admiring amberstreetlights out the windows,the gatherings…
A Blue Mayhem
The stares from bedridden people are haunting-C’mon, be a good sport, those stares are all they own,And you can’t, simply can’t ask her to shelter cries,As she never…
XII – Hanged One
We suspended the body Asked the snake to take the reigns Tied the Kundalini to the feet Took to the posture of hanging in space Surrendered – we…
Who is My Writer
… a human being who applied the learning body sacrifice of active development, never let it happen to me … poetic ambitious satanic attacker’s synthesis your constant impregnation…